GTA 5 Per Vehicle vs Per Model: How FiveM Cars Can Differ
In GTA 5 and FiveM, a car’s model, its textures and its handling belong to the model, shared by every car of that type. Only a few things belong to one vehicle: its mod indexes, its livery index, its extras and its colours. If you want each car on a server to look different, you must use one of those, and the choice changes the cost, the file size and how well garages keep it.
- Per model: meshes, textures, handling, any
AddReplaceTextureswap, the spawn name. - Per vehicle: mod indexes (
SetVehicleMod), livery index, extras, paint colours, interior colour, plate. - Rule: to differ car by car, turn the difference into a mod, a livery, an extra or a colour.
- Used by: the Fleet generator and the other Vehicle Studio add-ons.
What is per vehicle and what is per model?
| Thing | Scope | How it is stored |
|---|---|---|
| Mesh, textures, handling, audio | Per model | The files of the resource |
| Runtime texture swap | Per model, per client | Keyed by texture dictionary and texture name, so every car of that model changes at once |
Mod options (SetVehicleMod) | Per vehicle | A mod index per slot, synced with the vehicle appearance, saved by garages that store mods |
| Livery index | Per vehicle | One index; each livery is a texture of the model |
| Extras 1 to 12 | Per vehicle | On or off for each extra |
| Paint, interior and dashboard colour | Per vehicle | Colour indexes or custom RGB |
| Spawn name | Per model | One archetype per name, and two names cannot share one model file |
Why can’t I just swap a texture per car?
The game resolves a texture by the dictionary it lives in and its name. A replacement changes that entry for every entity that uses it on that client. That is why a script that swaps a roof number changes every car of that model, and why per-car looks come from mods, liveries and extras instead.
Which one should I use?
| You want | Use | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A different number on each car of a fleet | Mod options (one per unit) | About 2 MiB of number textures for 50 units, plus small mod models |
| A small set of looks, shown in the livery menu | Liveries | A full texture each; about 70 MB of video memory for 50 liveries at 1024 px, and models are commonly capped near 30 |
| Part that players can switch on and off | Extras or a tuning shop part | One extra bone or a small mod model |
| A colour that players choose | Paint or the native interior colour | No extra files |
| Rust that survives a respray | A livery layer over the paint | 5 levels of 1024 px in a 12 MB budget |
How do I make a per-vehicle difference in FiveM?
- Decide what must differ. A number, a colour, a part or a wear level.
- Pick the carrier. Mod option, livery, extra or colour index, using the table above.
- Check the slot. Make sure the mod slot, livery index or extra is not already used by your framework or another script.
- Build it into the car files. The FiveMRides Vehicle Studio does this for fleets, parts, interiors and wear without a script.
- Test with two cars. Spawn two cars of the same model and confirm that they differ and that a garage save keeps it.
Things to watch
- ESX and QB garages call the livery native with the saved livery index, so do not use the livery mod slot for another purpose.
- Menus show a slot under its GTA name, such as Tank for slot 45, with the option label you set.
- Fifty options in one slot and network sync of mods are fine in our test, but we have not tried every framework and menu.
Per vehicle vs per model questions
Can two cars of the same model have different textures in FiveM?
Not through a texture swap, which changes every car of the model. They can differ through mod options, the livery index, extras and colours, which are stored per vehicle.
Why is my FiveM livery not showing?
Common causes are a car whose metadata has no livery entries (a liveries block in carvariations.meta and the livery flag in vehicles.meta), a livery index that does not exist, or a script that sets the wrong index. The FiveM car livery guide covers the steps, and the Livery Studio builds them for you.
Is the livery index per vehicle?
Yes, each vehicle has its own livery index, but each livery is a texture of the model, so many liveries cost a lot of video memory.
How many liveries can a FiveM car have?
It is commonly said to be capped around 30, and a pack we looked at ships exactly 30. Treat that as a practical limit and test your own model.
Why not make one spawn name per car?
Each spawn name loads its own model file and two names cannot share one, so 50 names mean 50 copies. For a 9 MB car that is about 450 MB.
Do garage scripts keep mod options?
Frameworks that store the vehicle mods, such as ESX and QBCore garages, save the mod indexes. We have not tested every garage script.
What does AddReplaceTexture do?
It replaces a texture in a dictionary by name for the whole client, so every vehicle using that texture changes. It is a per model tool.